I work in IT and over the years I’ve used hundreds of tools to support various IT functions. Below is a list of tools in my tool box that I use on a regular basis.  If you have an recommendations please send them my way I’m always looking for new tools!  For each tool I’ll also have a blog post with details about pros, cons, and how I actually use it.

– Julian

Tools from the Tool Box

General Network Testing Tools

http://nwtools.com – several tools located here such as traceroute, ping, whois, dns lookup, and more.

http://www.myipaddress.com – easy to remember and fast way to get your computer’s public IP address

http://www.whatsmyip.org/ – Several tools located here such as traceroute, ping, finding your computer’s current IP address, port scanner, http compression checking, and more.

http://www.super-ping.com – Ping an IP from multiple places around the world and see what your latency is like.

SSL Testing

https://cryptoreport.websecurity.symantec.com/checker/views/certCheck.jsp – Great for checking if your SSL cert is installed correctly

https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/index.html – very comprehensive tool for seeing if your SSL configuration is as strong as it can be. The test results provide lots of information about your SSL and its configuration.

https://www.digicert.com/help/ – checks to see if your SSL cert is installed correctly

 

DNS Testing

https://dnsquery.org/ – several different DNS tools

http://www.dnsqueries.com/en/dns_traversal.php – confirm the DNS entry is correct starting at the root servers all the way down to the actual record.

https://www.whatsmydns.net/ – confirm your DNS entry is the same around the world

Email Testing

http://mxtoolbox.com/ – several different email testing tools including checking if your SMTP server is on a black list.